Court Sentences Ex-Official Of Defense Ministry To 5 Years In Prison Conditionally For Purchase Of Low-Quality Boats For UAH 444 Million From Plant Controlled By Poroshenko

The Solomianskyi District Court of Kyiv sentenced a former official of the Ministry of Defense to 5 years in prison conditionally for the purchase of two low-quality boats for UAH 443.9 million from a plant controlled by former President Petro Poroshenko.

This is stated in the materials of the court, Ukrainian News Agency reports.

According to the court materials, the defendant, whose name is not indicated, was the ex-director of the Department of Military-Technical Policy, Development of Armaments and Military Equipment of the Ministry of Defense, who purchased two low-quality boats from a firm owned by Poroshenko.

During the presidency of Petro Poroshenko, the government decided to buy two Kentavr assault boats.

This boat was designed in 2015 by the state enterprise Experimental Design Center for Shipbuilding at its own expense, therefore, the state enterprise, as the owner of the project, counted on attracting it to work on the development of working design documentation for the construction of boats, as well as on the author's control over it.

However, the Department of the Ministry of Defense chose the Leninska Kuznia Plant PrJSC (later renamed to the Kuznia na Rybalskomu Plant), controlled by Petro Poroshenko, as the executor.

During 2016, the Ministry of Defense financed Kuznia for the amount of UAH 135.7 million, but the plant was not the owner of the technical project, so the construction of the boats was not actually carried out until April 2017.

The project of the boat, approved and included in the state defense order, belonged to the state enterprise Experimental Design Center for Shipbuilding, which was suspended from the order, preferring the Poroshenko’s plant.

In April 2017, at a joint meeting of the Ministry of Defense and the management of the Kuznia na Rybalskomu Plant, in order to prevent the delivery of the boats from being disrupted, it was decided that the plant would develop its own project.

The new boat project did not meet the Operational and Tactical Requirements for an assault boat, approved by the order of the Ministry of Defense dated December 11, 2015, in particular, in terms of normal displacement indicators, draft at normal displacement, maximum speed.

As a result, two boats manufactured by the Kuznia na Rybalskomu Plant were not accepted by the Ministry of Defense as not meeting the order, and the construction of the third boat was stopped.

It is indicated that the state budget suffered damage to the amount of UAH 443.9 million - the amount paid to the Kuznia na Rybalskomu Plant for the manufacture of products that did not meet technical requirements and could not be taken by the customer into service.

The actions of the accused are qualified under Part 3 of Article 425 (negligent attitude towards military service), as well as Part 3 of Article 426 (inaction of the military authorities) of the Criminal Code.

The defendant was sentenced to 5 years in prison and released from punishment with a probationary period of 2 years and 6 months.

As Ukrainian News Agency earlier reported, in 2015, Ukroboronprom developed the Kentavr assault boat.

In September 2018, Poroshenko decided to sell his Kuznia na Rybalskomu shipyard.

In March 2017, the shareholders of the Leninska Kuznia shipyard (Kyiv), at a general meeting, decided to rename the enterprise to Kuznia na Rybalskomu Plant and change the form of ownership from a public joint-stock company to a private joint-stock company.